Interactive Foil – Making Touch Displays out of LCD’s and Projectors

In the spirit of continuing my investigation into the world of touch interfaces, check out this innovation from Visual Planet (I found out about this invention through interaction design blog). They are releasing an “interactive foil” that can be coupled with a standard LCD or projection display from 30 to 116 inches to deliver touchscreen functionality. Check out the video below of a prototype in action. If the cost is sufficiently low this will further drive the proliferation of touchscreens in public places – in doing so it will open up new opportunities and challenges for interaction designers.

As this technology increasingly becomes more available, it will be interesting to see how people respond to the appearance of touchscreen devices in different places. How will the type of interactions that people are willing to engage in differ based on their context. For example, people will feel comfortable engaging in some types of interactions in the privacy of a back of taxi that they would not be willing to do in a more public place, such as a bus stop.

As an inexperienced and technology-loving designer I have to always remind myself that I have a higher comfort-level with technology-based interactions than most others (my wife can attest to this). This is part of the reason that I have chosen to pursue this curriculum in interaction design – to help unleash the power of computation to enhance our experience of the world and improve quality of life.